Fritz Can’t Get By Sinner
Photo: Special to the NY Beacon
By Shara Talia Taylor
20th-seeded Frances Tiafoe accomplished much, but did not advance beyond the semifinals at the 2024 US Open as 12th-seeded Taylor Fritz won 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 Friday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Serves were a significant factor for both players and impacted the outcome of the match. Tiafoe experienced some pains in the fourth set, however, nervousness was his Achilles’ heel.
“Ultimately, yeah, I think nerves got the better of me tonight,” he said following the match. “Couldn’t really move. Got to tip your hat to Taylor.”
Fritz served first. He started with high-speed power serves, sometimes unanswered, as he won the first three games of the set. Tiafoe started to make a comeback as he made Fritz move. He found success to win the first set with strong serves, strategic hits to unreachable areas and forcing Fritz into making overpowered shots.
Tiafoe’s serve declined some as the match progressed and Fritz improved. Tiafoe had four aces in the first two sets. He made 63% of his first serves in the first set and 73% of his first serves in the second set. He had zero aces in the third set, two in the fourth and one in the final set. Less than 45% of his first serves were successful in the third, fourth and fifth sets each.
Fritz had two aces in the first set and three in the second set. 53% of his first serves were successful in the first set and 56% of his first serves in the second set. He had five aces in the fourth set and four aces in the last set. 63% of his first serves were successful in the fourth and 61% were successful in the fifth sets.
“It was really just about trying to withstand it for as long as I could, keep holding serve and apply the scoreboard pressure and just hope that at a certain point that the errors are going to come a little more,” Fritz said. “It got to that point in the end, and I finally started to get some mistakes from him, and some balls that I could, you know, look to be a little more aggressive on.”
Tiafoe said he felt unbelievable physically.
“I thought I was the better player for sure tonight,” he said. “In the fourth, I don’t know, just had some in-and-out cramps.”
Tiafoe has had much progress in the sport of tennis to reach this point. He shared some of his life experiences in the The Players’ Tribune in 2017. He discussed financial challenges while learning the sport, as the son of immigrant parents from Sierra Leone, but he had perseverance. His father worked at College Park Tennis Club in Maryland when he was a child, which was how he had the opportunity to be exposed to and eventually trained in the game. According to the US Open in September 2022, Tiafoe became the first Black man to reach a US Open semifinal since Arthur Ashe in 1972.
Following his match against Dimitrov Tiafoe, Tuesday evening, he responded to a question about the rise of black players from other countries and whether he was motivated or felt more pressure in his role.
“You have a responsibility when you’re out there, compete, enjoy, because things you do, those kids are going to mimic and want to be how you carry yourself,” he said at the press conference. “You know, you’ve seen so many cool people come out to watch, and just normal people that would just never really watch tennis and now are, like, fans of it because I’m playing it. It means a lot, and it’s helping the game.”
Tiafoe, on Friday, said he would learn from the match with Fritz and be better going forward.
Fritz moved ahead to become the first American man in a US Open final since 2006. He took on World No. 1 Jannik Sinner in the finals last Sunday only to come up short. Skinner won the US Open men’s singles championship in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 .
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